This blog was kindly authored by Clare Bottle FCILT, Chief Executive of the UK Warehousing Association to mark National Apprenticeship Week.
Warehousing rarely features in debates about the future of skills. When it does, it is often framed as low-skilled, low-paid work: a destination of last resort rather than a sector at the forefront of technological change. That picture is badly out of date.
Today’s warehouses sit at the intersection of logistics, automation and artificial intelligence. They are essential infrastructure for manufacturing, retail, healthcare, defence and life sciences. But the skills system has yet to recognise what this means in practice. A new policy paper from the UK Warehousing Association (UKWA), Building the Workforce of the Future, sets out why this matters and what can be done.
A strategically important but overlooked sector
Warehousing employs more than 650,000 people in workplaces where automation, robotics and advanced data analytics are no longer experimental. Yet according to our recent Skills Survey, over a third of employers report skills gaps in automation and robotics.
This puts warehousing squarely within the national conversation on robotics and autonomous systems (RAS). But unlike aerospace, defence or advanced manufacturing, most UK warehouses are not designing or building robots. Our sector is deploying them at scale; a distinction that matters for skills policy.
The wrong mental model of ‘robotics jobs’
Much of the skills literature – including recent robotics and autonomous systems frameworks – categorises roles into hardware engineering, software engineering, systems engineering and maintenance & repair. But warehouses do not work like that. In practice, most robotics-related roles in our sector are hybrid and operational:
- leading integration projects to deploy new automation that delivers productivity;
- producing labour plans for mixed human–robot teams;
- configuring warehouse management and control systems;
- working on diagnostics, reliability and safety rather than component-level repairs.
These roles sit at the interface between people, processes and technology. They rely on digital literacy, analytical thinking and operational judgement far more than on formal engineering disciplines. Designing skills policy around narrow engineering silos risks missing where most robotics and autonomous skills jobs actually are.
A system that doesn’t work for warehousing employers
Our Skills Paper is blunt about the failures of the current skills system. Only 13 per cent of warehousing employers report no recruitment difficulties. The hardest roles to fill are supervisors and team leaders; precisely the positions responsible for making automation productive and safe.
The current Apprenticeship Levy has not solved this problem. A reformed Growth and Skills Levy, due from April 2026, offers greater flexibility but will need to address the same structural issues. Since its introduction, the transport and logistics sector has paid around £1.35 billion in contributions but recovered only 32 pence in every pound through funded training. Apprenticeships are often inflexible, too long, or insufficiently aligned with operational needs. Leadership and management are the most commonly reported skills gaps, yet there is still no approved, funded apprenticeship for warehouse managers.
The result is a paradox: employers want to invest in skills, but the existing rules do not let them do so in ways that reflect how work is actually organised.
Four practical reforms
Our paper makes four recommendations, all designed to work within existing policy frameworks.
First, warehousing should be included in the initial rollout of Growth and Skills Levy flexibility from April 2026. Short, targeted courses in areas such as warehouse management, digital systems and automation would deliver immediate returns.
Second, the Warehouse Manager Level 4 Apprenticeship UKWA has already created with employers and the Trailblazer group should be approved and funded as a matter of urgency. Leadership gaps are the sector’s most acute shortage.
Third, new vocational pathways should be developed, including a V Level in Warehouse Operations and Management and a T Level covering logistics and supply chains.
Finally, SMEs need far better support to access training, because complexity and admin are major deterrents.
Why this matters beyond warehousing
Warehousing is a test case. If the UK cannot design a skills system that works for a large, technologically transforming, operationally complex sector employing hundreds of thousands of people, it is hard to see how skills policy will succeed elsewhere.
Britain’s warehouses are already some of our most high-tech workplaces. The question is whether policymakers will recognise that reality or continue to plan for an economy that no longer exists.